My heart sped up as I turned to see if the famous author had just walked in... then dropped when I found Yum Rustanov staring back at me. Like the iciest Siberian mountain come to life.
In my seminar class!
Lydia
Please,Universe! Pretty, pretty please!
My heart thundered as I silently prayed to the Universe to not let Artyom Freaking Rustanov sit next to me.Please, just this one time, have my?—
Artyom Rustanov settled into the empty seat next to mine before I could even finish begging the Universe to have my back, displacing the air around me and completely changing the room’s energy with the electric charge of his unexpected hockey-star presence.
“What are you even doing here?” I lowered my voice to demand. Though, I shouldn’t have bothered.
All the other students had fallen into shocked silence, so the question about why he’d shown up at Clara Quinn’s seminar of all places traveled across the small space as loudly as if I’d shouted it into a megaphone.
Artyom had the nerve to lazily swivel his head toward me and blink, as if he’d just noticed me sitting there.
“I cannot like these Black lady authors, too?” he asked with a smirk.
Confrontation really wasn’t my thing. Like, at all. But I flared my eyes at him, beyond outraged.
“Who do you think you’re fooling?” I began to ask.
“Hello, hello, students!”
Before I could finish, a resonant voice filled the air, and a heavyset Black woman with a tapered burgundy fro swept into the room.
“I am here, and so are you! Hello, my dearest acolytes. I am Clara Quinn.”
Clara Quinn, our seminar professor and arguably the most popular African American sci-fi fantasy writer in the entire world, moved to stand behind the chair at the head of the table.
But even her swanning arrival wasn’t enough to dislodge many of the students’ eyes from Artyom. Seriously, why was he here?
My mood remained tense as our highly esteemed teacher recited her bio word-for-word from the back of her books. Then she commanded us to do the same.
“Now, you may go around and introduce yourselves. We’ll need your name, your major, and your favorite Clara Quinn book. Please keep in mind that I am not at all respectful of your generation mores. You may call me Ms. Quinn or Professor Quinn, or you may keep my name out of your mouth.”
That announced, she started with the student directly to her right, a White accounting major named Rina with a buzzcut who told Ms. Quinn that her favorite book wasThe Winter Fae.
“My last book. Got it? And you, young man?” Ms. Quinn asked, moving on to a Black guy with a neon-pink fade.
“Oh, most definitely,The Autumn Fae!” he answered before introducing himself as a double Psych/African American studies major.
By the time the introductions reached me at the other end of the conference table, we were all laughing because, so far, all of our favorite books were eitherThe Summer Fae,The Autumn Fae, orThe Winter Faefrom her popular Seasons of the Fae series.
“Hey, I’m Lydia.” I gave the class a friendly cross-body wave, leaving out my last name as I always did unless pressed. “I’m getting my bachelor’s degree in social work, and like many others,The Summer Faehad me hooked from page one.”
I couldn’t stop myself from launching into full gush mode. “I ordered the rest of the series before I was even done with the first chapter, and I didn’t stop untilThe Winter Faewas done.”
I clasped my hands to my chest to tell her, “Ms. Quinn, can I just say you are my absolute favorite writer of all time? I seriously can’t wait forThe Spring Fae—though I’m also so scared about what will happen when Mariella discovers that her sisters have been lying to her all along about her new husband’s true identity.”
Nods and murmurs of agreement met my total fangirl comments, letting me know that this would totally be my kind of class, despite my initial misgivings. That made me bold enough to ask, “Do you know when that will be released?”
Wrong question.
Ms. Quinn’s expression tightened, and instead of answering, she cut her eyes to the person I’d almost forgotten was sitting next to me.
Her brow arched. “And you, young man? I, of all people, should know better than to judge a book by its cover. The rumor is cover judgment is the only thing that kept me from winning the Hugo back in 2001. But I highly doubt you’re a ‘Seasons of the Fae’ fan.”
